No license to drive children

Taxi firm picks up west suburban students despite cabbies not having required permit

June 03, 2010|By Dan Simmons, Tribune reporter

The white taxicab that pulled into the driveway of an Aurora home to pick up a 6-year-old girl for school had a burned-out headlight. But state and local records show that was the least of the problems.

The company, Addison-based Universal Taxi Dispatch Inc., does not have a license to operate in Aurora, despite driving children there since 2009 for two elementary school districts, a Tribune review found. A Universal cabdriver was ticketed by police as recently as April 29 for driving without a city license.

No drivers for Universal Taxi had the state permit required to pick up schoolchildren, according to Illinois secretary of state records. The state requires the cabdrivers to get school bus driver permits.

And although Universal Taxi is licensed to operate in Naperville, which is included in one of the Aurora district's attendance areas, only one of its drivers had the required city license, according to the clerk's office.

"I'm frustrated that these districts would trust a cab company that they haven't investigated appropriately," said Tonia La Rue, mother of the Aurora first-grader who was picked up by the cab last month.

School transportation officials estimate that hundreds of young students across Chicago-area suburbs take cabs every day. Most of the children have special needs and require transportation outside their enrollment zone. Districts have contracted with cab companies, for decades in some cases, to deliver these pupils, an arrangement that can save money and even sometimes result in lasting relationships between driver and student, officials say.

But the rules governing driver and car safety lead to confusion about what the requirements are and who has jurisdiction, the Tribune found. As a result, drivers who lack required state permits can slip through the regulatory cracks and drive children. Some parents and a former driver also question if the cabs themselves are safe.

The secretary of state issues school bus driver permits. But municipalities license the cab companies and individual cars, ensuring companies have adequate insurance and that the vehicles meet basic maintenance standards. In Naperville and Aurora, licensing means a driver background check and fingerprints and a safety inspection of the vehicle.

The burden of checking that cab companies have satisfied state and local licensing requirements falls to the school districts. And "some districts are more thorough about the details than others," said Dave Gauer, managing partner of Dart 303, a cab company based in Mount Prospect with 130 state-permitted drivers.

Universal drives children for Aurora-based Indian Prairie District 204 and East Aurora District 131.

Company officials could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts.

Karla Zozulia, director of support services for District 204, acknowledged the district didn't always know what was required of cabdrivers. It became a bigger issue this year, she said, when the district's homeless student population exploded, putting more kids in cabs as the district strove to keep them in school even if they switched addresses repeatedly.

The district required proof of background checks for drivers and insurance on the cars, but didn't require adequate proof of the bus driver permits issued by the secretary of state, records show.

"We just didn't know to ask for that, to be quite honest, and we're going to ask for it now that we know," she said, adding that she only recently learned of Universal's licensing gaps in Aurora and Naperville.

As a result, the district will open the taxicab process to bid this summer, with strictly defined requirements for bus driver permits and municipal licenses, she said.

Officials with District 131 did not respond to requests for comment.

A secretary of state official vowed to follow up on the Tribune's findings about Universal.

"Yes, absolutely we'll investigate," said Terry Montalbano, commercial driver's license administrator. "We may pay them a visit, both the districts and the company."

Drivers could be stripped of their license, and the company and school districts could face prosecution for allowing unpermitted drivers on the road with children aboard, he said. So far, such extreme measures haven't been taken during Montalbano's tenure.

Records obtained by the Tribune show that Universal official Gilbert Lietz wrote to District 131 in January and assured it that "all drivers go through school bus traing (sic)" and take "a refresher course each year."

But the state found no record of Universal drivers receiving the bus driver permit. "We don't show any (Universal) drivers at all who are licensed to drive children," Montalbano said.

The company last summer provided District 204 with diplomas for five drivers from a bus driver "refresher course" through the DuPage Regional Office of Education. But Montalbano said he found no records that any of the drivers named applied for a state permit in the first place.